Developing Your Inner GPS

Karen Salita spent 10 years as a competitive snowboarder before injuries launched her into, what she calls a desperate “search for self.”  Along the way made stunning discoveries that shifted the way she viewed herself and the world around her. She learned that grief could become her gift when it opened the door to purpose and meaning in life and gave her the opportunity to positively impact the people around her.  We explore how she did that and how you can too!

Learn more about Karen and her book and blog at KarenSalita.com. She can also be found on Instagram at Karen.Salita

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Transcript

 [00:00] Karen: In my previous life, I was a competitive snowboarder. My favorite discipline was the half pipe. But it is just the most fun thing, the, the most incredible physical experience I've ever had. And I was competitive for over ten years. I did very well. I was nationally ranked, I had sponsors, I traveled and I competed. And it was my love, it was my true love, it was my joy. And in my late twenty s, I developed chronic pain from injuries that I didn't even know I'd had. But when you're hucking yourself in the air doing tricks, coming down onto the snow, and some landings are more gentle than others, it takes an impact on your body. And in my late twenty s, I started seeing the doctors to diagnose my chronic pain. And they basically said that my spine was about 20 years older than the rest of my body, that I had worn it out already. And I was seeing a therapist at the time, a wonderful woman who was an athlete herself. And she asked me in one of our sessions, she said, what will you do if you can't snowboard anymore? And I felt my heart fall out of my body and it fell on the floor. And I said to her, I think I will die. But I realized that my biggest fear in that moment was not that I was physically going to die, but it was that I would psychically die because I realized that snowboarding had become my identity.

 [01:49] Bobbi: Welcome to Unyielded:Thriving No Matter What where we talk about how to make your next chapter in life your best chapter. I'm your host, Bobbi Kahler, and I believe that the best is yet to come. Back, everyone. As you can probably already tell, we have a great guest with us today. A little bit about her. Karen Salita spent ten years as a competitive snowboarder before injuries launched her into what she calls a desperate search for self. Along the way, she made stunning discoveries that shifted the way she viewed herself and the world around her. She learned that grief could become her gift when it opened the door to purpose and meaning in her life and it gave her the opportunity to make a positive impact on the people around her. And that's what we're going to be exploring today. Karen, welcome to the show.

 
 [02:49] Karen: Thanks, Bobbi. I've really been looking forward to this.

 [02:52] Bobbi: I think this is going to be a great conversation and it really caught my attention for a number of reasons and just for the listeners. Karen and I have already been talking for about, I don't know, 25 minutes before hitting the record button. So what we're going to talk about today is purpose and meaning, and we're going to talk about what are some things that get in our way, and then I'm going to say a surprising and maybe fun way of going about finding those. So I think that's a good way to put it because I don't want to give it away.

 [03:25] Karen: Awesome.

 [03:27] Bobbi: Do you want to start with maybe I don't know, what gets in the way of Purpose and Meaning?

 [03:33] Karen: Sure. Well, first I think it's important to define purpose and meaning for people, or at least allow people to define it for themselves because Purpose and Meaning can kind of get lumped into this trendy path of following your passion. And we don't want to go in that direction where it's kind of like a drug that you get all amped up on. But Purpose and Meaning is kind of a deeper inner guidance process. It's almost like your inner GPS. Purpose and Meaning gives you a sense of direction in life and it's going to be different for everybody. But it's something that also provides you with the energy that you need to face whatever lies ahead, whatever challenges lie ahead, whatever work needs to be done. But it's kind of like the fuel in your vehicle that moves you ahead. I would say maybe purpose is the GPS that guides the vehicle and Meaning is the fuel that energizes you for the journey ahead. Yeah, and everybody has it. Everybody has their own sense of purpose and meaning and there's no right or wrong answer. But it's up to the individual to investigate it and make sure that what's guiding them and fueling them is truly theirs and that it's not something that somebody else has given them. As, this should be your vehicle and this is the direction you should be going in and this is why you should choose this. That is probably the surest way to kill Purpose and Meaning. But the process of finding it for yourself can be a lifelong process. There's going to be different iterations of Purpose and Meaning throughout your life. Purpose and Meaning as a young adult is going to be a lot different than Purpose and Meaning in Midlife, which is going to be a lot different than your Purpose and Meaning as you're aging. And a lot of that journey is learning to identify the obstacles. Just like on any road trip, what happens if you run out of gas?

 [05:51] Bobbi: You get a flat tire.

 [05:52] Karen: You get a flat tire, you lose your path, you get off on the wrong exit, and all of a sudden you're in a neighborhood that you don't want to be in and the next thing you know, someone's stealing your hubcaps. But in my experience, those experiences are actually the ones that teach us the most.

 [06:14] Bobbi: They're great learning opportunities.

 [06:16] Karen: Getting off the path and having experiencing discomfort along the way actually gives us a much better sense of what the path looks like. I like to refer to it as contrast.

 [06:32] Bobbi: Tell me a little bit more about the contrast.

 [06:35] Karen: Yeah. So one of the things that we are taught in our lives is that discomfort is bad.

 [06:43] Bobbi: That's right.

 [06:44] Karen: That if you are feeling uncomfortable in your job, in your parenting, in your social life, in your dating, in your marriage. We're taught that if you're feeling uncomfortable, there's something wrong and you have to go out and fix it. However, by feeling the things that are not working and being able to identify those and name them, it helps us identify, well, if this isn't working, what does working look like? And that helps us give us a sense of where we would like to go, who we would like to be, how we want to show up in life, and when we are on the path of showing up in those ways, a we appreciate it. We can experience a sense of gratitude and appreciation for being in that space because we know what getting on the wrong path looks and feels like. We know what that bumpy road felt like and so we appreciate the smooth road a lot better and it also helps us identify when we're getting off the path in the future before we're lost, oh, I recognize these road signs. This is not the direction I want to go in. And it helps us to course correct a little bit sooner in the future.

 [08:05] Bobbi: So it kind of sounds like the contrast is they make good data points for us.

 [08:10] Karen: They do. It fills in the picture.

 [08:12] Bobbi: Yeah, it really does. I wanted to go back too. Before I forget, you said something earlier about the trendy thing around follow your passion. Follow your passion. How does that potentially misguide people? I guess what I'm trying to ask.

 [08:30] Karen: There are two people who come to mind for anybody who wants to explore the differences between passion and purpose. The first is somebody who I consider to be my fairy godmother, which is Elizabeth Gilbert. The author. The author and thought leader and inspirational leader. And she has a wonderful talk that she does with Oprah. And it's all about why you shouldn't follow your passion. I recommend that all of your listeners go online and find this talk of hers. It's really mind blowing about the difference between making your passion responsible for making you happy versus allowing your curiosity to inspire and intrigue you. Your curiosity will lead you in far more fulfilling directions than your passion ever will. And the other person that I recommend that your listeners check out is Cal Newport. He has a great Ted Talk and also he has a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You, about how when you follow purpose and impact, you might actually develop passion in ways that you wouldn't have found otherwise that are going to be a lot more sustainable over time. So I would definitely look into some of his ideas around that too.

 [10:01] Bobbi: Those are great resources. Thank you for sharing those. And you said in there the thing around the curiosity and I'm a huge believer in curiosity, right? It has so many powerful benefits. But specifically for this is this where the wiggles come in? Is it related?

 [10:22] Karen: It is related. So you and I were talking prior to recording about my blog which is called Follow Your Wiggle where I investigate these ideas that our lives are basically like a scavenger hunt and part of the purpose in our scavenger hunt is to learn more about the things that light us up in life. Now, if you want to talk to an expert on wiggles, find any eight year old that you know and they will be able to teach you wholeheartedly what it is like to live a life doing the things that light you up because they're completely uninhibited. We used to know what it was like too when we were younger. However, our communities and our parents, our families, our teachers, our peers in school all gave us these ideas that there are good ways to be in life and there are bad ways to be, good ways to show up and bad ways to show up. And the bad ways are going to put us in a position where we're at risk for not belonging in our communities or in our groups. And so we will stuff those aspects of ourselves that enliven and engage and inspire us. We will stuff those deep, deep, deep, deep down inside because we've been given the idea that that's the wrong path.

 [11:52] Bobbi: That's right.

 [11:53] Karen: And it's not until we get older that we begin to feel like there's something missing in our lives. I find that a lot of suffering in life is due to a sense of scarcity. That something is missing and that something is not enough for us, that something's not good enough. And usually it's that we are not good enough.

 [12:19] Bobbi: Yeah.

 [12:23] Karen: It'S kind of part of our journey in life to reconnect with those aspects of ourselves that really do light us up. And so for me, in my own journey, I have learned that when I feel a sensation in my body that is kind of like what a dog might feel when it's wagging its tail, I call it a wiggle. It's a physical sensation when I am actively engaged in an activity that motivates and inspires me, that energizes me, that gives me information about what I want more of in my life. And the curiosity aspect that you mentioned is the curiosity to learn more about those experiences that light us up, that energize us, that give us a sense of optimism and that give us a sense of inspiration to find out more and show up more in that space in life.

 [13:23] Bobbi: I want to go to something because you've mentioned a few times the phrase like we are not enough or something's wrong. Because I think that's standing out for me because well, number one, in coaching there's this framework that the client is not a problem to be solved. Right. The client is whole. And I've always been kind of a high achiever and it's funny, I've really started to pay attention to how many times I am framing. Something that's going on with me is oh, there's a problem, I got to solve it. And so one of my mantras has become over the last, I don't know, a few months, you are not a problem to be solved. You are enough. And I'm thinking that if I'm experiencing that, other people do too. So that whole thing around the we are not enough, there's a problem to be solved. It sounds like that's something that shows up for a lot of people and gets in their way. Is that a fair way of saying that?

 [14:32] Karen: Well, I can only speak from my experience, but I can say that that is 100% accurate for me and for a lot of the people that I talk to. So just to give you a little bit of my backstory, in my previous life I was a competitive snowboarder and I was competitive for over ten years. My favorite discipline was the half pipe.

 [14:58] Bobbi: I saw some of the pictures. It's crazy.

 [15:01] Karen: Yeah. And if you watch the Olympics these days, it's ultra crazy. But it is just the most fun thing, the most incredible physical experience I've ever had. And I was competitive for over ten years. I did very well, I was nationally ranked, I had sponsors, I traveled and I competed. And it was my love, it was my true love, it was my joy. And in my late twenty s, I developed chronic pain from injuries that I didn't even know I'd had. But when you're hucking yourself in the air doing tricks, coming down onto the snow, and some landings are more gentle than others, it takes an impact on your body. And in my late twenty s, I started seeing the doctors to diagnose my chronic pain. And they basically said that my spine was about 20 years older than the rest of my body, that I had worn it out already. And I was seeing a therapist at the time, a wonderful woman who was an athlete herself. So I really felt that she could relate. And she asked me in one of our sessions, she said, what will you do if you can't snowboard anymore?

 [16:21] Bobbi: Wow.

 [16:22] Karen: And I felt my heart fall out of my body and it fell on the floor. And I said to her, I think I will die. And that was a response that I didn't even expect. But I realized that my biggest fear in that moment was not that I was physically going to die, but it was that I would psychically die. Because I realized that snowboarding had become my identity over time and it had become my identity because I learned how to snowboard. And I took it on at a time in my life when I was actually being bullied and I had a lack of confidence in myself and I had never before really felt like I was good enough among my peers and in school. So I started snowboarding when I was a teenager. I started when I was twelve, so I hadn't even entered high school yet and I was going through all of these challenges that teenagers go through. And snowboarding at the time, this was very early in snowboarding's history, not very many people did it and it was considered very cool, which was very good for somebody who was very not cool at the time. So it made me coolish in my teenage years. But what it did was it gave me a sense of belonging that I had never found before and a sense of acceptance. And when I had the injuries and began the chronic pain, I realized that snowboarding had covered up a lot of my unfinished business and I'd never really learned to love myself unconditionally. Snowboarding gave me a sense of I'm important, I'm good, people like me. And when that was taken away, I realized that I was left feeling very empty and alone. And I had to go through the process of figuring out who I was as an adult because I never got to do that as a youth. So, kind of going back to your original question over what is the role of feeling like we're not good enough that usually I found stems from our childhood. I'm not a psychologist, I may play one on TV, but no, I'm just kidding. But I've seen it enough that in order to really live fully, in order to follow our purpose and find meaning in life, we have to know that we are good enough exactly as we are. That what we bring to the table is meaningful, that who we are. And how we show up is important because we model it for other people who are like us, who also need to know that they are okay and they're looking to us to show them. So we have a lot of opportunities to be that for somebody else, but we have to be it for ourselves first. So my journey started with healing those wounds in my early adulthood before I could ever really look at the rest of my life and figure out my vehicle and my journey and my path. And to go on that grand road trip that we call life, you have to start with yourself.

 [20:06] Bobbi: Yeah.

 [20:07] Karen: And I think that is when I first learned this process of feeling into it, which is where the wiggles came from. I didn't have the vocabulary for it at the time. The vocabulary came later. Looking back on my process and when I had to navigate other transitions in life that came later, I reflected back on how did I figure out who I was and what I wanted in that most difficult time in my life. And what I realized it was, was those little tiny sensations in my body that wiggled like a dog that's excited in those moments in Conversations with People. It's how I learned to overcome my discomfort in social situations was when I learned how to have conversations that inspired me with other people. And when I learned that we all have more in common than we are different. And when I learned that when I gave myself permission to show up vulnerably this was kind of a long process, but when I learned to see my own challenges as challenges that everybody faces, everybody is insecure. Everybody has things that they're afraid of and that they're ashamed of. And when I learned that mine were okay, it's okay to show up and feel vulnerable. And when I began to share those in conversations with people, it gave them permission to actually be vulnerable and show up as themselves and not feel like we have to have these superficial lives interactions with one another. And when I learned to show up as my full self and be okay with that, other people started showing up as their full selves with me. And now we could have a real relationship. Now we could have a real conversation. Now we can actually make progress and do things that are big and important and impactful in our lives because we're not in hiding anymore, right? Once I could show up, man, now the world is open to you.

 [22:15] Bobbi: It's totally open. And yet we all have that fear, right? I'll never forget I used to do years ago, Leadership. It was a weekend leadership retreat for high school students. And we were at, I don't know, there were, I don't know, 25 of us who did these around the world. And we had once a year, we had our facilitators conference. And I don't remember which facilitator it was, but as you can imagine, you get 80 high school students together in a room for a weekend. It can be all over the place. But on Friday night, when they first come together, there's all this guardedness, and everyone's like, oh, what's everyone else thinking about me? And whoever this facilitator was, she did something really brilliant on the first night of the retreat. She said, I want you all to look around at each other and just know that as you're standing there thinking, oh, my goodness, what are people thinking about my hair? What are people thinking about the way I'm dressed? What are people thinking about this? She's like, Just realize every person in the room is having those thoughts. And she said, if you're one of those people having your thoughts, would you raise your hands? And every student always raised their hand, and it was like the floodgates open. But we think that we're the only ones. We routinely make that mistake, and we're not. It sounds like that was a fabulous learning lesson, because some people never learn that.

 [23:41] Karen: Yeah, I agree. I think that we live in a really amazing time today when, with the access to information through social media and a lot of the podcasting brings ideas and experiences to the forefront that we would never have known. I hear myself in so many podcast guests that I listen to, which is one of the reasons that I love your podcast, because I hear so many of my experiences reflected back to me, which really is very validating. And I will say those moments of hardship, just like we talked about earlier in the conversation, about the importance of experiencing those really bumpy roads and the importance of contrast in our experiences, I would not change any of what I went through, any of it. I would not take back the bullying that I experienced. I would not take back the negative emotions and the negative feelings and the insecurities. I would not take back that very, very difficult time when I started experiencing chronic pain and suffering because what that enabled me to do is recognize all of that in other people around me. And what I came to realize is that everybody is suffering in some way. Everybody has insecurities, everybody is struggling. I keep seeing a meme pop up online that says everyone is fighting a fight that you'll never know about. Everybody is struggling. And I have the capacity for empathy for other people in a way that I don't think I would have otherwise. And that sense of empathy is really guiding my journey today toward redefining what purpose and meaning looks like for me in my life now. It's no longer all about me. It was in that early twenty s and thirty s journey, it was all about me fixing myself. So I thought, right, it was really all about me learning to love myself without any conditions on it. And I'm grateful for that journey. Now it's really about my journey toward helping facilitate environments in which other people can do the same thing. It allows me to see struggle and suffering in new ways in the world. I'm seeing it on a much bigger scale today. I'm seeing it very much in communities of color. I see struggle and suffering and I see women and single moms who are working and I see the struggles that they face trying to be everything to everyone but not being able to show up for themselves. And it gives me a sense of purpose to reach out and connect and give people tools to navigate their own struggles so that they can have breakthroughs. And once, once you've had a breakthrough, usually one of the biggest things you want to do is show other people and model that for somebody else.

 [27:03] Bobbi: That's right.

 [27:04] Karen: And the more breakthroughs that people have and the more they want to model it, it really has a huge impact on the world around us. So it's a small thing for me to try to convey these ideas through my writing, through ideating, through my own personal experience. But if I can help somebody else to have a breakthrough and that breakthrough encourages them to want to help somebody else have a breakthrough. Maybe I could change the world in a little way that I'll never know about. And I'm good with that. That makes me happy.

 [27:38] Bobbi: That's the thing. We may never know about it, but it is that ripple effect.

 [27:42] Karen: Yeah.

 [27:43] Bobbi: And it surprises me sometimes. I'll hear from someone that went through today, I got an email from someone, she went through a program with me seven or eight years ago, and out of the blue, and it's like, wow, I had no idea that that was something and she shared something that was really powerful for and I'm like, really? I had no idea. But that's amazing. And you had sent me some I don't know if they were chapters, but parts of some of your book, and I was reading through those beforehand. I loved that. There were so many in there that I thought, wow, that's really great to ponder on some of those things. Before we run out of time, I also want to make sure of we had talked about three in our correspondence ahead of time. We talked about three action steps that people could take so that they could shift to being more receptive, to following the journey, following the process, if you will. Do you want to share those three steps?

 [28:40] Karen: Sure. So every time I go through a transition in my own life, which we do every time there's a transition between your transition, between your between every milestone in our lives, there's always a transition. And transitions are difficult because purpose and meaning changes for us. And there are certain things that I've noticed repeatedly in my own journey that will hold me back from making progress forward. One of those things is the attachments or the assumptions that I am making about my situation. I guess to phrase it more like you had phrased it, something to let go of in order to move forward is some of those assumptions that we make about how we should be right now in our lives. Some of those assumptions are, I should be further along in my career. I should be a better mom. I should be showing up in different ways, or I should have more at this point in my life, I should have a bigger 401. These are all assumptions based on judgment that really constrict our freedom to be curious about what's possible for us. And it's all about having this need for control. So letting go of our assumptions and our attachments about how things should be.

 [30:19] Bobbi: Yeah.

 [30:21] Karen: It's a very freeing action.

 [30:24] Bobbi: Yeah.

 [30:25] Karen: The second one is letting go of the idea that if you feel discontented or unhappy that there's something wrong with you or that there's something wrong with your situation, discomfort is very important. It's actually a catalyst for change. If we are not uncomfortable, there's no reason to change, and we will stay in the exact same place our entire lives. One of my favorite sayings, and I wish I knew who said this, I wish I knew who to attribute it to is change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.

 [31:07] Bobbi: Yeah.

 [31:08] Karen: So that discomfort is what actually gets us to move. So it's very important. So when we feel uncomfortable, there's this question that you can ask yourself, what is the message in this discomfort? What is this discomfort sharing with me? And the discomfort gives you an idea of what's not working.

 [31:30] Bobbi: That's right.

 [31:31] Karen: Okay, so if I know what's not working, what would the alternative look like? How can I deconstruct that alternative to start creating more of that in my life? And that gets us on the path moving forward.

 [31:48] Bobbi: Love that. Because it's data.

 [31:51] Karen: It is data. It's all information for us. Discomfort provides us with a tremendous amount of information, and that information is actually very motivating.

 [32:00] Bobbi: It is.

 [32:00] Karen: And gives us tools for moving forward. Love that. And then the third key that I've learned that I still have to remind myself of is to give myself permission to experiment without judgment, and more importantly, give myself permission to and I'm doing this in finger quotes, air quotes, permission to fail without judgment. Because a lot of what prevents us from trying new things is the fear of failure. And probably one of the biggest breakthroughs for me is that failure, the definition of failure, is really just an outcome that didn't meet our expectations.

 [32:44] Bobbi: That's all it was.

 [32:45] Karen: That's it. There's actually nothing wrong with it. It's a learning opportunity. So if you experiment and it doesn't go as planned, or it doesn't go well, you learn from it and you're like, oh, well, okay, that didn't quite work. How can we do this differently next time? And if you can let go of the emotional reaction, the self judgment to things not going as planned, you get up and you try it again in a different way, and that way works. And now you've got momentum moving forward in a new direction because you learned what didn't work first. So it opens up new opportunities for possibilities and experimentation. And learning from failure actually leads to optimism because you learn that new things are possible that you hadn't learned before because you've never tried them.

 [33:38] Bobbi: That's right. And when you're talking about the thing about failure, it reminded me earlier, talking about the eight year old. An eight year old is not if they're out playing. I was a daredevil as a kid. He's still one of my best friends. We've been friends since we were four. His name's harold. And he's like, Why did I ever listen to you? Because I was the person who's like, let's build a know. Because I read Tom Sawyer or something. He never should have listened to know. And it was going really well until the whole thing know. I did not. Think of that as a was.

 [34:15] Karen: That was an.

 [34:18] Bobbi: So as our eight year old selves. We don't judge that, but, boy, we do as adults. And there's something really, I think, really important in there, too. Karen, when you started talking about that, you said purpose and meaning changes with a transition, and that goes to something else. You said it doesn't stay the same. And I think that we get this message about purpose so much anymore that we're supposed to know our one and only purpose, and that's what we're supposed to have our whole life. And that's not what I'm hearing from you. That it's okay. Not only is it okay, but maybe it's natural that it would change.

 [34:58] Karen: Yeah. And it's really what allows us to grow and to have new experiences that educate us in new ways. I like to think of our lives as it's kind of like a game. Our lives are like a video game with different levels, and every level has these challenges that you have to figure out, and you have to learn where the special coins are that give you special powers. And then the image that comes to mind is Donkey Kong, because I'm a product of the Mario Brothers. Right. And you'll do that same level over and over and over, and you won't make it to the end. And then finally you figure it all out and you get to the end. And the end is just the beginning of the next level, and the objective of the next level is a little bit different, but we have fun. We have fun playing that game and mastering each level, and we have fun starting the next level where we're not a master, but we have fun encountering the challenges and learning how to overcome those obstacles and get to the end and then get to the next level, and our lives are no different.

 [36:10] Bobbi: It's a great metaphor.

 [36:12] Karen: It's a game, and we should enjoy playing it and enjoy the challenges and the obstacles and the learning opportunities, because they're going to give us other opportunities to experience life in new, even more rewarding ways when we get to the next level.

 [36:27] Bobbi: Right. I absolutely love that framing of it, because as soon as you started talking about it, I'm a child of the immediately had that image in my mind, and it's like, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Why would it stay static? And not to judge it as, oh, God, something's wrong with me. No, we're in a transition. That's all it is.

 [36:50] Karen: Exactly.

 [36:52] Bobbi: Wow. On this, too. I just want to throw this out real quick. I recently stepped back from the company I'd been with for 14 years, and that's a pretty big transition at the same time that happened. Well, within a month of that, my father got ill and moved in with us, and then he ended up passing away. So those are two massive life transitions because he was my last remaining parent. And it's like, oh. And I knew like, okay, now is the time for self care. I really need to focus. I'm going to slow down a little bit, at least temporarily, so I can go through this transition that's hard for someone like me. I'm so action oriented. And my husband, who's a coach as well, he was saying that when he was going through his coaching program, they were talking about when someone's going through a transition like that, sometimes to have them think about being the opposite of how they've always been. I'm like, okay, I don't even know what that would mean. I don't even know what that would look like. But we kind of talked about it. I'm like, that's an intriguing idea because it perhaps is a superpower that we just haven't developed yet because we're so busy being the other thing. So we'll see how that goes. I don't know. I can get myself into all kinds of trouble there.

 [38:07] Karen: Would you want to tell us a.

 [38:08] Bobbi: Little bit about your book and where people can find you and that type of thing?

 [38:12] Karen: Sure. So my book is called 101 Soul Seeds for Reinventing Yourself. And it's the culmination of all the different lessons and actions and steps that I've gone through multiple times in my life when I've encountered difficult transitions that really encourage me to start showing up in different ways, that feel better for myself, that show up in the world in ways that feel more authentic. And I always like to share with people that the process of reinventing yourself is not about the process of becoming someone new. It's really about the process of becoming more of yourself. So my book is kind of like a guidebook. It's 101 different separate ideas that help you practice this on a daily basis, especially if you're not quite sure which direction to go in. It does help you to tap into those experiences that you find most meaningful but might be elusive in your daily life. And it encourages you to think in new ways and to expand the possibilities of what's possible for you so that you can show up in life in ways that feel more satisfying and fulfilling. And nourishing, it's not a difficult read. You can take each piece and sort of meditate on it for a little while, or you can go through it and just pick out the ones that are most resonant to you and come back to those. And it's also really good for people of all ages, I've found. Of course, I wrote it with myself in mind, me being in midlife and experiencing some of the role changes and the shifts that occur in midlife. But the feedback that I've gotten is that people who are recently retiring and having to define themselves in new way, they're no longer defined in relation to the work that they do have really shared with me some beautiful feedback. And younger moms or moms who have kids at home have shared with me that they actually read it together at the dining table over breakfast in the morning, and that their teenagers are embodying these ideas. So it's really a fun, inspiring, light read, but it is also deep, and it provides a lot of sort of meaty information for people who are going through this process themselves.

 [40:48] Bobbi: Yeah, and people can find that on Amazon, your website, or where's the best place?

 [40:53] Karen: Yeah. So, of course, like all books, it is available on Amazon. I do encourage people to shop through their local bookstores. You can request it through any local independent bookstore. They will order it for you. Or you can go on Bookshop.org and order it through that website, and that will actually allow a local independent bookstore to order it for you. I do like to support the independent bookstores, and you can always find more information about the book on my website, which is Karensalita.com.

 [41:29] Bobbi: Perfect. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing all this. This was just, I don't know, very insightful, and it was a delightful conversation. So I'm so glad you could be here.

 [41:40] Karen: Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it.

 [41:43] Bobbi: I had a ton of takeaways from that conversation. I hope that you did, too. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. If you know of someone who could benefit from this episode, I hope that you'll consider sharing it with them. Have a great week and keep thriving.